Florida professional sports teams have ignored a 25-year-old law long enough, according to Sen. Mike Bennett, who wants to use the law to force the teams to refund some of the money taxpayers have spent subsidizing their stadiums.

Bennett’s using a little-known state law that now requires that any professional sports facility built with state money to be used as a homeless shelter except when the facility is being used for a specific event or activity to go after what he calls corporate welfare.

Bennettalso wants to fine the sports teams for blacking out local television coverage of the games and use the money from the fines to buy tickets to the games and give the tickets to foster kids or active-duty soldiers.

The sports franchises now get $166,000 per month in tax breaks for 30 years, Bennett said. The teams would be fined $125,000 for blacking out the games – something the state can’t stop, Bennett said.

“The theory is if we’re going to give them $166,000 per month for 30 years we cannot control what the NFL does. But we can fine them the $125,000. They’ll still get a little tax break of around $41,000. But we think there’s a lot of deserving children out here who would like to go to…see those games,” he said.

Under Bennett’s proposal (SB 816), approved unanimously by the Senate Community Affairs Committee this morning, the teams would have to repay up to nearly $300 million Florida the teams – along with counties and others – have received to build arenas if they don’t start complying with the law.

“All of the sports teams always preach up and down about playing fair. I think it’s fair that they follow the rules in their games and I think it’s fair that they follow the rules of the state of Florida,” Bennett, R-Bradenton, said. “We have spent over $300 million supporting teams that can afford to pay a guy $7, $8, $10 million a year to throw a baseball 90 feet. I think they can pay for their own stadium.”

Bennett, a long-time critic of using state funds to give tax breaks or other financial assistance to professional sports teams, said he has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office to look into whether the state would actually be able to recoup the money from the teams as his bill proposes. If not, he said he’s prepared to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the teams.

“I cannot believe that we’re going to cut money out of Medicaid and take it away from homeless and take it away from the poor and the impoverished and we’re continuing to support people who are billionaires with the stadiums,” Bennett said.

So far, Florida taxpayers have contributed more than $261 million to 17 facilities throughout the state, including $37 million for Dolphin Stadium. St. Lucie County received nearly $1.3 million since 2007 to help cover the costs of a spring training ball park for the New York Jets.

The bill has three more committee stops in the Senate and has not yet been heard in the House.

Converting football and baseball stadiums into homeless shelters might seem like a strange idea, but Florida law apparently already includes such a provision.

State law now requires that any professional sports facility built with state money must be used as a homeless shelter except when the facility is being used for a specific event or activity.

But none of the 17 football, baseball, basketball and hockey arenas that relied on state money for construction have ever been used to house the homeless, according to Sen. Mike Bennett, who’s filed a bill that could cost counties and professional sports franchises big-time.

Bennett’s measure (SB 816) would require that counties and professional sports franchises who’ve received state aid to build stadiums or other facilities prove to the attorney general that they’ve got a homeless shelter in place, or refund the money to the state.

So far, Florida taxpayers have contributed more than $261 million to the facilities. St. Lucie County received nearly $1.3 million in 2007 to help cover the costs of a spring training ball park for the New York Jets.

Dolphin Stadium could be on the hook for the biggest pay-back, if Bennett’s bill goes anywhere. They’ve been paid $37 million thus far by the state. Also on the line are counties, cities or other backs of nearly every major-league sports team in the state.

Bennett called the teams’ and counties’ failure to provide housing for the homeless “yet another example of how taxpayers are supplementing the super rich owners of sports franchises while the taxpayers of Florida are receiving very little in return” in a press release this afternoon. He said he discovered the requirement in existing law over the summer.

“I cannot believe that we tax people who are making a living catching mullet in our state and then take that tax money and send it to billionaires so they can have fancier stadiums,” Bennett, R-Bradenton, said.

Civic groups like the Boy Scouts of America could find it harder to register voters under a sweeping elections bill (HB 1355) approved by the Senate and sent back to the House this afternoon.

The elections overhaul would, among other things, create tight restrictions on third-party voter organizations – such as the League of Women Voters, unions and the NAACP – and require them to hand over voter registration forms to elections supervisors within 48 hours or face $1,000 fines.

The bill would also shorten the number of days voters can cast their ballots early before Election Day.

Democrats argue the changes are aimed at suppressing Democratic voter turnout in 2012 because Democrats tend to use early voting more than Republicans and relied heavily on third-party groups to register voters in the 2008 presidential election.

“Maybe some people didn’t like the outcome of our last presidential election or the outcome of the ballot initiatives that have passed in recent years,” Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston said before the 25-13 vote. Republican Sens. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey and Paula Dockery of Lakeland joined Democrats in opposition.

Earlier today, union leaders urged Democrats to ask questions about the measure to lay the groundwork for lawsuits later this summer.

Democrats also complained that the changes would make it more difficult to voters to cast their ballots and have them counted.

But Sen. Mike Bennett, a Vietnam vet, said that maybe voting shouldn’t be so easy. He compared Floridians’ voting experiences with voters in new democracies in Africa who have to “walk 200 or 300 miles” to cast their ballots.

“How much more convenient do you want to make it? You want to go to the house? Take the polling booth with us?” Bennett, R-Bradenton, wanted to know. “For the guy who died to give you that right to vote it was not inconvenient…I wouldn’t have any problem making it harder. I would want them to vote as badly as I want to vote. I want the people of the state of Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who’s willing to walk 200 miles…This should not be easy.”

Sen. Mike Bennett reversed his opposition to Gov. Rick Scott’s rejection of $2.4 billion for a high-speed rail project from Orlando to Tampa.

Bennett, a Bradenton Republican who is the Senate president pro tempore, sent letters to Scott and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking to remove his name from the list of 25 senators who objected to Scott’s refusal to accept the federal funds.

“I do not support the use of taxpayer money for High Speed Rail and fully support your decision to return the monies earmarked for High Speed Rail. I believe that it is simply irresponsible to spend $2.4 billion on such projects when we face a $14 trillion in federal debt. We cannot borrow our way into prosperity,” Bennett wrote.

Bennett also made it clear he does not support a lawsuit filed against Scott this week by fellow Sens. Thad Altman, a Rockledge Republican, and Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa.

Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, also revoked his signature from the letter sent by a bipartisan coalition of senators led by Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, an early Scott supporter during his campaign for governor.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos, a Merritt Island Republican running for the U.S. Senate, also supports Scott’s rejection of the federal funds and opposes the lawsuit.
The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in the lawsuit today at 3 p.m.

Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos tapped Sen. Mike Bennett to serve as president pro tempore and Sen. Andy Gardiner as Senate Majority Leader.

Gardiner, R-Orlando, sponsored a controversial anti-abortion measure vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist that would have required pregnant women to view a sonogram of the fetus and listen to a description of it before having an abortion. He was elected in 2008.

Bennett, R-Bradenton, is a moderate Republican elected in 2002.

Here’s what some legislators who’ve served in the military had to say about President Barack Obama’s firing of General Stanley McChrystal, the loose-lipped former commander of the war in Afghanistan who got the boot yesterday over his tell-all interview with The Rolling Stone.

Sen. Mike Bennett, who served four tours of duty in Vietnam in the U.S. Navy, harshly criticized Obama in part because McChrystal had such a good relationship with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and was making progress in the war although some critics question how successful the campaign has been thus far.

“I think both of them expressed very bad judgment. Two wrongs actually don’t make a right. I don’t think that telling the truth is something you should get fired over. He exercised extremely bad judgment. I think the president firing him was just as bad a judgment. He should have figured out another way to reprimand him,” Bennett, R-Bradenton said.

But Rep. Rich Glorioso, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who spent 27 years in the military, disagreed.

“If I was the president I would have fired him also. Even if what he’s saying is absolutely correct, there’s a way for him to do that. But putting it out in a magazine like that..You can’t have a general do those kinds of things. It doesn’t lead to good order and discipline,” Glorioso, R-Plant City, said. “If it was one of my squadron commanders, I’d have fired him. You may not like the person but you have to respect the position. There’s a proper place for you to exercise your beliefs within the chain of command and that’s where it belonged.”

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